There was this discussion recently about whether Apache 2.0 should be recommended by the PHP guys or not.
While I find their warning a bit too harsh, I for myself still cannot run Apache 2 – though I’d really like to. So maybe it’s time to add my two cents:
Last march, I was going to newly set up our productive server. As the apache guys keep telling that Apache 2.0 is production ready, I first went with the new version of course. Here’s what did not work and finally forced me to go back to 1.3: It’s not about PHP at all: The two extensions I’m depending on (MySQL and PostgreSQL) are available in a threadsafe edition, so even one of the threaded MPMs would have worked. What killed my intentions was mod_perl.
Back then, when the comment-spam problem was not that a big one for me, I have been running gnegg.ch in a mod_perl environement which at that time was not setupable with Apache 2: mod_perl itself had an even bigger warning about not working well than PHP still has. And additionally, they’ve changed their API, so even if I’d been able to get it to work, there would have been no guarantees of getting MT to work with that new api.
Anyway: I’ve been willing to try it out, but libapreq, required by MT when running in mod_perl, was only available as an early preview too (still isn’t nowhere near production ready). My tries in installing it anyway lead to a flurry of SIGSEGVs in Apache when using MT. Judging from the Gentoo bugtracker this has not gotten better yet.
One of the strongest selling-points for Apache isn’t PHP. It’s mod_perl. And currently, it’s mod_perl that should have this big warning on its webpage. Mod_perl and not PHP (which works nicely under Apache 2 in an internal developement system).
And even when mod_perl gets fixed: As they have changed the API, many existing (and not longer maintained) packages using mod_perl (like Apache::MP3 for example) will possibly stop working after the switch to Apache 2.
As soon as the first guy comes here and posts that he/she’s gotten MT to work under mod_perl on Apache 2, I’m going to reconsider the switch. Not a second earlier.
gnegg 